22 June 2021

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's Les Surmenés (1958)


As this is a very early short from Doniol-Valcroze it's very easy to excuse the man who went on to direct, for example, L'Eau à la bouche. But it's difficult (impossible even) to decide if this is a kind of documentary on the hazards of overworking or just a story of a young woman from Limousin who moves to Paris.

Catherine (Yane Barry) lives in the peaceful countryside and has won a typing competition. She has also met Bernard (Jean-Pierre Cassel) on holiday and decided to move to Paris where he lives, and where he works in the same company as her sister Solange (Chantal de Rieux). This being 1958, she doesn't at first move in with Bernard but with her sister and her overworked husband.

Because this is Catherine's first time in Paris she's overcome by the bright lights and the dancing and wants to go out all the time, exasperating Bernard. As she's met the dragueur Jimmy on the train to Paris and he left her with his phone number she starts going out with him, but soon tires of this. So she returns to Bernard and they're soon (perhaps happily) married, although Bernard teasingly treats her as a fool. 

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